


Sent With Love

by GraduateGraduate



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cute and trying to keep the other from worrying, M/M, Not quite?, fluff?, wartime letters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 03:28:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14907449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraduateGraduate/pseuds/GraduateGraduate
Summary: A series of letters written between Bucky and Steve while Bucky’s on the frontlines.Takes place during Captain America: The First Avenger between Bucky shipping off and Steve performing for what’s left of the 107th.The timeline’s not perfect.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick series of letters. Unbetaed.
> 
> Italics + Strikethrough = self-censored  
> Bold + Strikethrough = censored
> 
> I might come back and fill in gaps with more letters. I might not.
> 
> Hope you enjoy them :)

March 05, 1942

Stevie,

We’ve arrived. Smooth journey so far. Wide range of boys out here. Some are arrogant and just itching to shoot people. Others have the fear of god in their eyes. I’m not used to having to rally others to fight - to light that fire in them. I’m usually trying to contain it.

It’s your usual men’s camping trip out here so far. Sharing whiskey and cigarettes by the fire. Stories ‘bout our lovers, waiting for us back home. Morale’s high when guns aren’t in hand.

Even so, Stevie, I hope you were turned away at that last recruiting tent I watched you enter. As much as I want to see you, I don’t want to see you out here.

Love,

Bucky


	2. Chapter 2

March 10, 1942

Bucky,

I’m not as fragile as you think I am. I can deal with a little environment exposure.

It’s weird seeing your bed empty every morning. I still think any moment now the door will open and you’ll come stepping through with stale bread and hot coffee to share.

I suppose your absence will become familiar eventually. But today it’s hard.

(I don’t know when this will reach you, but Happy Birthday. We’ll celebrate when you get back.)

 

Love,  
Steve


	3. Chapter 3

March 16, 1942

Stevie,

Remember that day you locked us out of the apartment in the thunderstorm? And we didn’t have our coats or shoes? (And you were sick for a month?) Every day here has been wetter somehow.

At least we have shoes.

I don’t want you worrying about me though, Stevie. The boys out here keep my spirits up. You’d like them. Little rough around the edges, but good hearts, the lot of ‘em.

They hear about you lots. _~~Though they might think you’re a dame. I haven’t corrected them yet.~~_ Sorry. But you know how it is.

Could you send a photo with your next letter? Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can’t quite remember your face. It scares me more than anything I’ve seen out here.

I can’t remember a lot of things.

The smell of your clean, fresh skin.

The taste of a cigarette not intermingled with the scent of shit and death.

What it feels like to come under someone else’s hand.

Tongue.

What I wouldn’t do, Stevie, to wake up in our apartment; to find all this an incredibly vivid nightmare.

I do hope you’re staying out of trouble.

All my love,  
Your brother,

Bucky


	4. Chapter 4

(Unsent)

March 22, 1942

Stevie,

For every letter I’ve sent you, there are twelve I haven’t.

I write you every day. I write you everything, the bad and the ugly. But I can’t bring myself to send you those honest accounts. Part of me wants to: I want you to know what it’s really like out here. I want you to stop trying to get our beautiful, scrawny ass out here.

But I don’t want you to worry. So I don’t send them.

Besides, the censors. If they saw half of what I’ve written to you, I might be dishonourably discharged. And this war is too important to be sent home for loving you. Even if home is where I’d rather be.

I love you, Stevie. I never get to say that properly in the letters I send, but I hope you read them as if I do.

I love you,

Bucky


	5. Chapter 5

April 02, 1942

Buck,

Things have been tight since you’ve gone. Collecting scrap metal in a little red wagon barely covers rent, so there’s no spare change for photos. I hope this self-portrait will do.

Mom and Becca send their love. I went home for dinner last night. They worry about you, we all do, but they’re well. Becca got an A on her last essay. She was really pleased. You would have ruffled her hair and put it on the fridge.

We did post it up, but it wasn’t the same.

Nothing’s the same, Buck.

Everything is colder. Maybe that’s just what war is like, but i’m pretty sure it’s just because you’re gone.

I wish I could do more.

Don’t win the war until I figure out how to do more.

Love,  
Steve


	6. Chapter 6

(Unsent)

April 02, 1942

Bucky,

I’ve drawn over a dozen self-portraits and I hate all of them. I still don’t get what you see in me, Buck. And trying to draw myself just highlights that.

But you. You’re beautiful.

I’ll never forget what you look like, if only because I draw you every day. I refuse to forget the way the sun warms your stoney eyes, or the way they crinkle when you smile.

I sent you my second favourite.

I miss you, Buck. Every day I miss you.

Love,  
Steve


	7. Chapter 7

April 10, 1942

Steve,

Don’t you dare, you asthmatic little punk.

Do you know how much harder it would be for me to do what I need to do out here if I thought you were out there somewhere trying to survive the same shit-storm?

I need you at home. Someone needs to ruffle Bec’s hair and keep ma company.

Please. No more enlisting.

As for that “self-portrait,” the boys are convinced we’re twins now. Dugan got hold of it and very quickly spotted your uncanny resemblance of me.

I laughed though, Stevie. The first one that’s reached my belly and my eyes at the same time instead of just dying in my throat.

I needed that.

Love,

Bucky


	8. Chapter 8

(Unsent)

May 25, 1942

Stevie,

You better be alive, you little punk. 6 weeks without hearing from you?!

Did you catch your death of cold? Did you finally get your death wish and find a way to be sent over here?

 ~~ _Do you not love me anymore?_~~ No, that one’s ridiculous.

I’m overthinking this, right? God, not hearing from you for so long though, my imagination runs wild.

I can’t send you this. I sound crazy.


	9. Chapter 9

May 25, 1942

Steve,

It’s been 6 weeks without a letter. Is everything alright?

All’s the same here.

Love,

Bucky


	10. Chapter 10

June 01, 1942

Bucky,

Things are going well here. Great, even.

There’s too much to tell you, and you wouldn’t believe half of it. All I’ll say is I met Howard Stark. Nice guy.

I’ll leave it at that.

Love,  
Steve


	11. Chapter 11

June 15, 1942

Stevie,

You’re right. I don’t believe you.

THE Howard Stark?

They keep sending us more of his weapons. Top of the line shit. I don’t know when he’d have the time to be anywhere other than working. His tech is so far ahead of anything anyone else is working on. We’re lucky to have him on our side.

You’ve never been a liar though…

Did he stop by the coffee shop? What was he like? Did you tell him I’m a huge fan?

Love,

Bucky


	12. Chapter 12

July 12, 1942

Bucky,

He’s a lot like you. Cocky, with every right to be. It’s probably why I like him so much.

I can’t say much more about it. NDA’s and interception and all that.

I guess you could consider me something of a Research Assistant, perhaps.

Sorry letters have been slow. They’re keeping me busy. Letters might be even more infrequent. Don’t worry though. I’m fine. I promise.

Back to work.

Love,  
Steve


	13. Chapter 13

(Unsent)

July 19, 2018

Steve,

Every time I send a letter off, I wonder if it’ll make it to you. And if it does, how much will be in tact and how much will be blacked out.

They censor yours too. Though probably not as heavily as they censor ours on the way out.

Battle secrets and all that.

I wish I could come home.

Sometimes I wonder who the Prisoners of War actually are: the German boys we have in cages, or us. We’re both caked in mud, and most of them aren’t even Nazis, Steve. They’re kids who didn’t have any other choice. They bleed the same and freeze the same when the man beside them is gunned down in front of them.

Put them in our uniforms and you couldn’t tell the difference.

Hitler’s so far away from where we actually are. Sometimes he feels more like an idea that won’t die than an actual killable thing.

But we still have to kill the kids between us and him. It’s that or be killed.


	14. Chapter 14

July 21, 1942

Stevie,

Please tell me you get to wear a white lab coat as Stark’s Research Assistant. I can just picture it flapping out behind you like a cape as you walk. I hope it makes you feel like one of your comic book super heroes.

I’m a lot less worried knowing you’re under Stark’s watch and they’re keeping you busy.

I hope it’s the contribution to the war you’ve been looking for.

Letters might be slow on my end too. **~~We’re moving out tomorrow. Big push from the front lines.~~**

Love,

Bucky


End file.
